An algal greening of land

Cell 174:256–258 (2018)

doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.034

The Chara genome: Secondary complexity and implications for plant terrestrialization

Cell 174:448–464 (2018)

doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.033

Press release by HHU (in German)

Il Bo Live from the Univeristy of Padova (Italy) interviewed Bill Martin about the first organism on Earth:

Com'era fatto il primo organismo mai vissuto sulla Terra?

(Text in Italian, Video in English)

The Archbishop of Berlin, Dr. Heiner Koch, held the laudatio to the laureate, Prof. William Martin, at the award ceremony of the Klüh Prize in the Hotel Adlon (Berlin). Dr. Koch's laudatio and Prof. Martin's acceptance speech are available on the website of the Archdiocese of Berlin (in German).

Rheinische Post, a major German regional daily newspaper, published an article about William Martin and the Klüh Prize 2018 awarded to him.

Westdeutsche Zeitung, one of the largest German regional daily newspaper in North Rhine-Westphalia, published an article about William Martin and the Klüh Prize 2018 awarded to him.

William Martin recieves the 2018 Award of the Klüh Foundation for the Promotion of Innovation in Science and Research

Embryophyte stress signaling evolved in the algal progenitors of land plants

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (2018)

doi: 10.1073/pnas.1719230115

Cessa Rauch successfully finished her doctorate with the thesis entitled

"Plastid longevity in sacoglossan sea slugs".

Eukaryote lateral gene transfer is Lamarckian

Nat Ecol Evol (2018)

doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0521-7

Native metals, electron bifurcation, and CO₂ reduction in early biochemical evolution

Curr Opin Microbiol 43: 77–83 (2018)

doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2017.12.010

William Martin talks about:

Ursprünge des Lebens. Wo lebten die ersten Zellen, und wovon?

Thursday, November 29, 2017, 17:00 h
Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und Künste, Palmenstraße 16, 40217 Düsseldorf

William Martin reported on Ö1, an austrian radio station operated by Austria's public broadcaster ORF, in the program "Dimensionen" about the origin of life:

Wie das Leben auf der Erde begonnen hat

A physiological perspective on the origin and evolution of photosynthesis

FEMS Microbiol Rev (2017)

doi: 10.1093/femsre/fux056

William Martin recieves the 2017 Spiridion Brusina Medal of the Croatian Society of Natural Sciences.

Website in Croatian language

Symbiogenesis, gradualism, and mitochondrial energy in eukaryote origin

Period Biol 119: 141–158 (2017)

doi: 10.18054/pb.v119i3.5694

Too much eukaryote LGT

Bioessays (2017)

doi: 10.1002/bies.201700115

Arte, a public German-French TV network, broadcasted a video about William Martin's findings about the role of iron at the origin of life in the science program Xenius:

"Eisen: Warum wir es zum Überleben brauchen"

On being the right size as an animal with plastids

Front. Plant Sci. 8:1402 (2017)

doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.01402

The physiology of phagocytosis in the context of mitochondrial origin

Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 81 (2017)

doi: 10.1128/MMBR.00008-17

The VolkswagenStiftung will support Prof. Dr. William F. Martin in the next five years under the initiative "Life – A fresh scientific approach to the basic principles of life".

This project is in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Martin Lercher (HHU Düsseldorf) and Prof. Dr. Eörs Sathmáry (Parmenides Institute Munich).

Project title: "A unified model of recombination in life"

William Martin reported on WDR 5, a radio channel produced by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), a public broadcasting company in Germany, in the program "Zeitzeichen" about Stanley Miller on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Miller's death. 

Going back in genes

The Biologist 64:20–23 (2017)

Astrobiology at NASA posted an article about LUCA and William Martin's work:

Looking for LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor

Google Scholar lists public profiles for Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf.

Sriram Garg successfully finished his doctorate with the thesis entitled

"Mitochondria and Major Transitions at the Origin of Eukaryotes".

Energy in ancient metabolism

Cell 168:953–955 (2017)

doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.02.032

Physiology, phylogeny, early evolution, and GAPDH

Protoplasma 254:1823–1834 (2017)

doi: 10.1007/s00709-017-1095-y

Late mitochondrial origin is an artifact

Genome Biol. Evol. 9:373–379 (2017)

doi: 10.1093/gbe/evx027

Chuan Ku was awarded for the Best Doctoral Dissertation 2016 of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf.

William Martin talks about:

Einsam und allein auf einem jungen Planeten. Der letzte gemeinsame Vorfahr allen Lebens

Thursday, February 2, 2017, 19:00 h
Haus der Universität, Schadowplatz 14, 40212 Düsseldorf

Rheinische Post, a major German regional daily newspaper, published an article about Bill Martin and his research on the origin of life:

Wie das Leben auf die Welt kam

Harald Preisner successfully finished his doctorate with the thesis entitled

"Cytoskelett-Analyse parabasalischer Parasiten: Die Präsenz potentieller Intermediärfilament Proteine in Protisten".

Physiology, anaerobes, and the origin of mitosing cells 50 years on

J. Theor. Biol. 434: 2–10 (2017)

doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2017.01.004

The Guardian panel of leading scientists picked the most significant discoveries and developments of the year 2016:

Number 6: Our last universal common ancestor gets a makeover

The VolkswagenStiftung will support PD Dr. Sven B. Gould with 1.5 million Euro in the next five years under the initiative "Life – A fresh scientific approach to the basic principles of life".

This project is in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Julia Vorholt (ETH Zürich) and deals with the early steps of eukaryotic evolution, such as the origin of the nucleus or the role of mitochondria.

Project title: "Probing the prokaryote to eukaryote transition through synthetic evolution"

Reply to 'Is LUCA a thermophilic progenote?'

Nat. Microbiol. 1:16230 (2016)

doi: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.230

William Martin talks about:

„Am Anfang war LUCA.
Genetische Rekonstruktion des letzten gemeinsamen Vorfahren aller heute lebenden Organismen“

Friday, November 18, 2016, 19:00 h
Auditorium at Haus der Wissenschaft, Pockelsstr. 11, 38106 Braunschweig

A natural barrier to lateral gene transfer from prokaryotes to eukaryotes revealed from genomes: The 70% rule.

BMC Biol. 14:89 (2016)

doi: 10.1186/s12915-016-0315-9

Chuan Ku successfully finished his doctorate with the thesis entitled

"On the prokaryotic origins of eukaryotic genes".

Cessa Rauch wins the Second Place of the 'Best Presentation Award for Young Scientists' at the 13th International Colloquium on Endocytobiology and Symbiosis (ICES), September 10–14 2016, Kyoto (Japan).

Launch of the book "Erste Erde. Epos." by Raoul Schrott with reading and discussions, among others with William Martin, about the origin of the Earth and the early evolution at the Poetenfest in Erlangen, Germany.

Raoul Schrott. Erste Erde. Epos. Hanser Verlag. München. 26. September 2016.

ISBN 3446252827 

DER SPIEGEL, a German weekly news magazine, interviewed William Martin about Luca, the last universal common ancestor (Nature Microbiology, July 2016):

Das Leben entstand nur einmal

Dr. Adam Rutherford interviewed William Martin about his article published in Nature Microbiology, July 2016, on BBC Radio 4, a radio station owned and operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), in the science program "Inside Science":

Last Common Ancestor

The TIME Magazine, an American weekly news magazine, published an article about William Martin's latest paper in Nature Microbiology:

What a 4-billion-year-old organism says about life in space

Verena Kauzleben reported about William Martin's article published in Nature Microbiology, July 2016, on WDR 5, a radio channel produced by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), a public broadcasting company in Germany, in the science program "Leonardo":

Frühe Lebewesen liebten es heiß

Overview of attention for William Martin's article published in Nature Microbiology, July 2016.

The Washington Post, an American daily newspaper, published an article about William Martin's latest paper in Nature Microbiology:

Was this ancient organism the first life on Earth, or just the luckiest?

WDR, a German public-broadcasting institution, broadcasted a video about William Martin's article published in Nature Microbiology, July 2016, in "Lokalzeit Düsseldorf": 

Weltsensation aus Düsseldorf: Forscher entdecken "Urform des Lebens"

William Martin posted a nice text in the "Behind the paper" section on the Nature Microbiology Community website:

How and where did the very first cells on Earth make a living? – Genomes uncover evidence for the physiology of LUCA

Jan de Vries successfully finished his doctorate with the thesis entitled

"Of robust kleptoplasts and versatile embryoplasts".

An interview with Bill Martin, whose interests are endosymbiosis, early evolution, and the origin of life.

Curr. Biol. 13:R515–R517 (2016)

Mitochondria, the cell cycle, and the origin of sex via a syncytial eukaryote common ancestor

Genome Biol. Evol. 8:1950–1970 (2016)

Energy for two: New archaeal lineages and the origin of mitochondria

Bioessays 38:850–856 (2016)

doi: 10.1002/bies.201600089

Movie of the origin of life-theory developed by M.J. Russell and W.F. Martin

Movie of the symbiotic origin of eukaryotes-theory developed by W.F. Martin.

Sriram Garg wins the poster prize at the Gordon Research Seminar Mitochondria & Chloroplasts, Endosymbiotic Organelles: Biogenesis, Homeostasis, and Integration, June 18–19 2016, Mount Snow, West Dover, Vermont (USA).

Title: Role of charge in organelle protein targeting evolution

This is a video abstract of our paper "Bacterial vesicle secretion and the evolutionary origin of the eukaryotic endomembrane system" in Trends in Microbiology (24:525–534, 2016) where we propose that the eukaryotic endomembrane system originated from bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) released by the mitochondrial ancestor within the cytosol of its archaeal host at eukaryote origin. Confined within the host's cytosol, OMVs accumulated naturally, fusing either with each other or with the host's plasma membrane. This matched the host's archaeal secretory pathway for cotranslational protein insertion with outward bound mitochondrial-derived vesicles consisting of bacterial lipids, forging a primordial, secretory endoplasmic reticulum as the cornerstone of the eukaryotic endomembrane system.

The Trends in Plant Science cover image (Volume 21, Issue 6, 2016) depicts the terrestrialization by fresh-water algae. Key steps in evolution are often singularities. The emergence of land plants is one such case and it is not immediately apparent why. A recent analysis found the zygnematophycean algae to represent the closest relative to embryophytes. Intriguingly, many exaptations thought essential to conquer land are common among various streptophytes, but zygnematophycean algae share with land plants the transfer of a few plastid genes to the nucleus. On pages 467–476 Sven B. Gould and colleagues discuss how the streptophyte chloroplast evolved into what we refer to as the embryoplast, and argue this was as important for terrestrialization by fresh-water algae as the host cell-associated exaptations that are most often focused on. Cover image created by Sven B. Gould with support from Debbie Maizels.

Welt am Sonntag, a national German news magazine, published an article about Bill Martin and his research on the origin of life.

Rheinische Post, a major German regional daily newspaper, published an article about Shijulal Nelson-Sathi, his research on prokaryotic genomes and the Karl-Arnold-Prize awarded to him.

The European Union will support Prof. Dr. William F. Martin with around 2.4 million euros in the next five years. He was awarded the highly prestigious Advanced Grant in 2014 of the European Research Council (ERC). These Advanced Grants are awarded in a very strict selection process only to established, successful top researchers and are therefore considered a special scientific award. The special award to receive an ERC Advanced Grant, is also documented by the success rate: They fell at the current bid by approximately 4% to less than 8%.